Firefighters tell of scene in Port Jervis murder and arson trial

Tuesday

Apr 8, 2014 at 2:00 AMApr 8, 2014 at 7:41 AM

GOSHEN — Monday's testimony in the murder and arson trial of David Stevenson in the death of TyRochelle Haughton focused on firefighters and paramedics who answered the fire call, and what they saw that day.

BY HEATHER YAKIN

GOSHEN — Monday's testimony in the murder and arson trial of David Stevenson in the death of TyRochelle Haughton focused on firefighters and paramedics who answered the fire call, and what they saw that day.

Haughton, 35, was found dead Jan. 15, 2013 inside 8 Mountain Ave. in Port Jervis. She shared the house with boyfriend Stevenson, 39. Prosecutors say Stevenson cut Haughton's throat and fractured her skull, killing her, and then set the fire to cover up the homicide. He's on trial in Orange County Court before Judge Jeffrey Berry. Assistant district attorneys Julie Mohl and Christopher Kelly are prosecuting the case. Stevenson is represented by lawyer Jaime Santana.

On Monday, Port Jervis Deputy Fire Chief Joseph Kowal testified it took him about a minute to get from work to the fire scene. Kowal kicked in the front door of the house, and he and police Officer Robert Krentz crawled into the building, shouting for anyone who might be inside. Krentz had gotten a report that a woman and possibly a child were in the house.

Unable to stay in the building because of the thick, hot black smoke, Kowal and Krentz backed out.

Firefighters were able to extinguish the blaze in 15-20 minutes, Kowal said. Then they started searching for victims. Firefighters Thomas Snyder found Haughton in the bathroom.

"He reported to me that something wasn't right in the bathroom," Kowal said, so as incident commander he went to check. "She was laying on her back. She was totally nude with- I could see some kind of cut on her throat. There was a lot of blood in the room."

In the kitchen, Kowal said, he found the toppled stove "just ripped apart. It wasn't normal."

In the basement, a wood stove was burning, its doors opened wide, he said,

Snyder testified that when he found Haughton's body, she was partially leaning on the tub and wall. When he tried to move her, her head tipped back, revealing the throat wound. Snyder said he realized she was dead.